Monday, December 31, 2018

While a tough call on what should have been a game-winning
steal for St. John’s at Seton Hall Saturday prevents a Top 25 match-up of
ranked Big East teams, the New Year’s Day opener still features two of the top
8 most valuable basketball players in the country according to the new www.valueaddbasketball.com
ratings.

Instead of a chance to beat their fourth ranked opponent
this season, Marquette unfortunately faces a St. John’s team coming off its
first loss of the season and Shamorie Ponds, the 8th most valuable
player, coming off his only bad game of the season on 2 of 13 shooting and five
turnovers against Seton Hall. Markus Howard slipped past Ponds as the most
valuable Big East player and 6th overall after hitting more
three-pointers in a 29 minutes stretch than Ponds hit in December.

Nat'l

Big East Player

Team

Value

Class

3 pts, Game Played

6

Markus Howard

Marquette

10.90

3 Jr

49 3-pts in 13 Gms

8

Shamorie Ponds

St. John's

10.27

3 Jr

22 3-pts in 13 Gms

20

Myles Powell

Seton Hall

8.97

3 Jr

41 3-pts in 13 Gms

39

Sam Hauser

Marquette

8.16

3 Jr

34 3-pts in 13 Gms

50

Jessie Govan

Georgetown

7.72

4 Sr

17 3-pts in 13 Gms

59

Alpha Diallo

Providence

7.41

3 Jr

21 3-pts in 13 Gms

100

Phil Booth

Villanova

6.85

4 Sr

32 3-pts in 13 Gms

105

LJ Figueroa

St. John's

6.76

2 So

22 3-pts in 13 Gms

109

Ty-Shon Alexander

Creighton

6.68

2 So

40 3-pts in 12 Gms

113

Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree

Villanova

6.64

2 So

0 3-pts in 13 Gms

180

Collin Gillespie

Villanova

5.87

2 So

20 3-pts in 12 Gms

181

Tyrique Jones

Xavier

5.86

3 Jr

0 3-pts in 13 Gms

186

Eric Paschall

Villanova

5.77

4 Sr

23 3-pts in 13 Gms

191

Josh LeBlanc

Georgetown

5.73

1 Fr

0 3-pts in 13 Gms

199

Max Strus

DePaul

5.68

4 Sr

35 3-pts in 11 Gms

229

Paul Jorgensen

Butler

5.44

4 Sr

35 3-pts in 13 Gms

231

Sandro Mamukelashvili

Seton Hall

5.41

2 So

11 3-pts in 13 Gms

235

Isaiah Jackson

Providence

5.38

4 Sr

19 3-pts in 13 Gms

240

Mitch Ballock

Creighton

5.36

2 So

34 3-pts in 12 Gms

273

Damien Jefferson

Creighton

5.11

2 So

12 3-pts in 12 Gms

281

Zach Hankins

Xavier

5.00

4 Sr

0 3-pts in 14 Gms

285

Joey Brunk

Butler

4.96

2 So

0 3-pts in 13 Gms

325

Marcus Zegarowski

Creighton

4.70

1 Fr

18 3-pts in 12 Gms

346

Kamar Baldwin

Butler

4.62

3 Jr

15 3-pts in 13 Gms

363

Joey Hauser

Marquette

4.54

1 Fr

15 3-pts in 13 Gms

Starting with a 16:16 left and Marquette trailing #14
Buffalo, the next 29 minutes of Marquette basketball bridging into the Southern
game featured Markus Howard scoring 62 points on 13 of 15 three-points shooting
which was one more than the 12 Ponds hit in December and moved Howard into a
distant second behind Detroit’s Antoine Davis’ unbelievable 67 three-pointers.

Marquette faces a team coming off what should have been a
dramatic win at Seton Hall, which stunned Kentucky earlier this year, when
officials made a mistake on a game-winning steal of an inbound pass – giving
the Pirates another chance that they cashed in on for a buzzer beating
game-winner. In addition to facing a team looking for revenge for that
set-back, Marquette must overcome the team best positioned to take advantage of
Marquette’s one glaring weakness, protecting the basketball.

St. John’s joins only Duke, Auburn, LSU and Syracuse from
the six major conferences in stealing the ball more than one out of 8 opponent
possessions, including an incredible 12 steals in just 76 Seton Hall
possessions despite what should have been the 13th note counting –
which would have made it better than one in 6 possessions Saturday night.

If St. John’s can steal the ball that often against Seton
Hall, the 20th best team at protecting the ball and preventing
turnovers, it could spell complete havoc against a Marquette team that ranks
only 238th as one of only eight major conference teams who turns the
ball over more than one in five possessions.

Joe Hauser not only rounds out the top 25, but his 4.54
Value Add ranks him third among Big East freshman behind only Georgetown’s Josh
LeBlanc (5.73) and Creighton’s Marcus Zegarowski (4.70).

The good news is Marquette can play defense as well for the
first time in years Jae Crowder compiled the best defensive Value Add (-4.89
AdjD indicates he erased almost 5 points a per 100 trips in 2012), but in the
previous four seasons only Henry Ellenson (2016) and JuJuan Johnson (2017)
erased more than a point a game until this year when FIVE Marquette players are
doing (Jamal Cain, Joseph Chartouny, Theo John, Sam Hauser and Ed Morrow).

Click here for the explanation of the Value Add basketball
and how it calculates how much worse a teams average score would be if the
player were replaced by a bench player on a mediocre team. Our new piece on the
top 20 national players and other stories on Value Add Basketball and
Statis-Pro baseball projections for the Brewers and others are at http://www.pudnersports.com/.